Triumvirate
by Ourliazo
Summary: Before the Arcobaleno curse, Reborn visits a library in England. Before that fateful Halloween night, Voldemort sits down across from an Italian. Before Kakashi takes on a genin team, he's hit with an unidentified jutsu and encounters two very dangerous men when he tries to get home.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Triumvirate

Summary: Before the Arcobaleno curse, Reborn visits a library in England. Before that fateful Halloween night, Voldemort sits down across from an Italian man. Before Kakashi takes on a genin team, he's hit with an unidentified jutsu and encounters two very dangerous men when he tries to get home.

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Reborn slides his fingertips across the book spines, most of them dusty. The library around him is quiet, large and well insulated enough that even if someone screamed, no one would hear. The towering rows of shelves, stuffed full of old and new books, only leave narrow walkways to move through.

The ceiling is reinforced glass and currently shows dark skies and bright lightning. The patter of rain is soothing and streaks of water create beautiful patterns on the glass. The light barely reaches the lowest floor, especially since the entire library is four levels.

The ground floor takes up the whole layout but the next floor up has a gap in the middle to look down, which only gets wider at the third floor and the fourth is only a thin ring that stretches across the walls.

Reborn adjusts his laptop in his arms and finally reaches the correct book, sliding it out and flipping quickly through to the index. Mathematical texts aren't exactly a popular pass time so it's incredibly hard to find any online and Reborn is forced to travel to England just to visit a library.

He tucks the book into his arms with the other three and his laptop. It's getting awkward to carry at this stage because each text is at least ten centimetres thick. Reborn moves swiftly now that he has his books, passing through the rows upon rows of shelves until he finds one of the hidden tables that dot the library.

He's on the fourth floor, where the older and more specialised books are, so he doesn't encounter anyone. He slides out one of the three chairs at the small wooden table and lays down his books with a quietly relieved sigh.

He sits down and drops his hat onto the table before opening his laptop, quickly connecting to the public Wi-Fi and opening his notes. Reborn drags a heavy text to him and starts reading, quickly getting lost in the fascinating subject. He doesn't even realise when someone walks up to his table.

"Excuse me," a handsome brown haired man says, arms full of texts and a leather-bound notebook. "Would you mind if I take a seat?"

Reborn blinks slowly and looks up. "Not at all," he murmurs, gesturing for the other man to sit. Reborn can sense something very dark, but… maths. He turns back to his laptop and continues typing.

Voldemort pulls the seat out and sits down, laying out his research in front of him but keeping most of his attention on the Italian sitting at his side. The man is younger than the guise Voldemort picked for this visit to the muggle world, but has an aura of danger. No magic to speak of but a killer nonetheless.

When the younger doesn't do anything but get more absorbed in his books, Voldemort turns to his own texts. He opens his notebook, lifting the muggle fountain pen he left inside. Neat words have filled most of the pages, his handwriting perfect despite the odd stationary he uses.

He searches through the psychological tomes and stacks the rest even though he knows they'll eventually spread out the more he gets involved in the research. The wizarding world is far advanced in many ways but the extent of interest into the mind eventually boils down to Legilimency and Occulmency.

It's a pity because Voldemort likes manipulating people, taking them apart piece by piece, unmaking everything that they are. The knowledge also allows him to judge his own mind and check for cracks in his logic or outside tampering.

He feels himself slipping into uncontrollable rages far too often these days and he needs to know how to repair himself. A Dark Lord can't be insane, not when so many things can go wrong, not when he's so close to reaching out and simply taking what he wants.

He already knows it's the Dark Arts that's causing this, but for years he's managed to control himself. It's not going to defeat him now - not ever. Voldemort is far stronger.

He rolls the fountain pen between his fingers and opens the first book, soon getting lost in the complexities of consciousness and how to guide thoughts and actions with a few cunning words.

Neither Voldemort nor Reborn notice a third presence, a man with a shock of white hair and a relaxed saunter. Like the other two, he has books stacked high, one on each hand and a third pile balanced easily on his head.

Without asking, Kakashi slides out the last free chair with a foot and sets down his texts before slumping down into the seat. The ninja is dressed in black jeans and a loose long-sleeve shirt with a dark green jacket over the top. A mask still hides his face and a bandana covers his eye.

The last thing Kakashi remembers, before waking up in some forest very far from Konoha, is a simple infiltration mission. He joined some suicidal cult who worshipped a mad God. It was supposed to be easy since Kakashi just needed to wait a few days and his target would kill themselves as a sacrifice.

Things went according to plan and Kakashi sipped his non-poisoned drink as the rest of the cult happily dropped dead around him. That's when he blacked out.

Kakashi peers down at the books in front of him and tries to concentrate on finding a way home, but the other men distract him. They're not doing anything bad in particular, and like everything in this odd world, neither has any sign of chakra.

But Kakashi knows better than to dismiss a potential threat.

The man in the three-piece suit has tan skin, darker than the other two, and his black hair spikes up even worse that Kakashi's. He looks comparatively shorter but has more muscle mass than the brunet, though Kakashi still wins in that department since his occupation demands it. The man also appears younger than the others, but exudes confidence.

The tallest man, and perhaps the oldest, is the brunet with icy blue eyes. He's pale and thin with long, dexterous fingers, clad in black pants tucked into boots and a charcoal button-up shirt, not quite as formal as the youngest. He sits with a prim and proper attitude but Kakashi picks him as the one with the shortest temperament.

Kakashi doesn't know -can't possibly predict- that all three men are vicious killers. Voldemort has an edge of madness, Reborn is infected with boredom from the monotony of death, and Kakashi will fully admit that he likes the challenge of a fight too much.

They sit quietly in a library, cut off from the world by tall shelves and immersed in books. They're geniuses, prodigies, so much more than most people can ever dream of.

Something is bound to go wrong.

The Konoha ninja turns to his research but keeps part of his attention focused on the other two. Eventually their work spreads out into a jumble of books, mixing and overlapping each other.

Voldemort makes a frustrated sound, almost slipping into Parseltongue as he flips and moves around texts to find the one he needs. Reborn calmly reaches over to Kakashi and slides out a book from under the one the ninja is reading, the hitman then passing it over to the Dark Lord who settles quickly.

At one point, Reborn just blinks at a text outlining the multiverse theory, not sure why he has it. He shrugs anyway and corrects a miscalculation in the book before shoving it away from him. Kakashi snatches the book and passes back the laptop, having stolen it to check what the definition of 'adscititious' was.

Hours since first taking a seat, Kakashi sighs and slumps back. His intellect is through the roof, but dimension travel is a bit beyond him. The books provide theories and possible mechanisms but nothing concrete so he has no basis to work from. To make everything more complicated, Kakashi doesn't understand half the words because this world is so different from his own and he's so lost.

He sighs again, something close to a groan, and runs his hands through his hair in irritation. He sees the other men glance up at him, the oldest with irritation and the youngest with mild curiosity. Kakashi decides to just go for it.

The ninja drops his hands to the table and leans forward. "You two wouldn't happen to know about dimension travel, would you?"

The oldest raises an eyebrow. "Are you referring to the Veil?"

The younger hums. "Or do you mean the Sky Mare ring?"

And just like that, something shatters. The universe is never quite the same.

(But it would be boring otherwise.)

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A/N: For the love of whatever God you subscribe to, someone needs to write this in full.


	2. Chapter 2

Kakashi blinks, not having expected a legitimate response to his half-hearted question, much less two replies. "I don't know what either of those things are."

Voldemort leans back his chair. The silver haired man is a muggle, but the Dark Lord isn't one to restrict himself with laws like the Statute of Secrecy. Plus, he's feeling rather charitable after hours of devouring information.

The Dark Lord falls into lecture mode with ease despite not teaching since Hogwarts when he was playing the good student and helping others. "The Veil is an unidentified magical phenomenon, theoretically able to move past the ley lines that hold physical matter in this universe. If utilised properly it can be a vessel to transport matter to an as of yet unknown location."

The ninja raises an eyebrow. "You could have just said 'mysterious portal'."

Voldemort scowls. "It's much more than a _mysterious portal_ you-"

"Well," Reborn begins in the exact same lecturing tone, loud enough to drown out the older man. "The Sky Mare ring can allow the user to view and -with the proper equipment- step into parallel worlds." The hitman slides a superior glance to Voldemort. "Theoretically and experimentally _proven_ , by the way."

Voldemort narrows his icy blue eyes. "Don't disrespect your betters, little boy. I've crucio'd someone for far less."

Kakashi cuts in quickly, wanting to know a potential way home before the fighting starts. "How does it work? Can you show me the ring?"

Reborn pauses. "I don't exactly know where it is… or how it works."

Voldemort scoffs. "What happened to 'proven'? Don't tell me you're going off rumours."

"Still better than a mysterious portal," Reborn argues.

" _It's not a mysterious portal_ ," Voldemort snaps and the wand comes out, a toxic green glow building at the end of the intricately carved wood.

Leon is sliding out of Reborn's sleeve in the next second and transforming into a gun as the hitman lines up the shot with Voldemort's head, not a hint of hesitation as he tightens his hold on the trigger, ready to react as soon as the older man makes a move to use his strange weapon.

Kakashi very calmly flips the table.

Reborn and Voldemort lurch to their feet and move back to avoid getting crushed under the heavy books and solid wood. The hitman quickly grabs his tossed laptop mid-air and catches his hat on the shut lid.

A loud series of 'thud's echoes through the library and Voldemort grimaces at the bent spines and scrunched pages of the books underneath the table. It's like nails scraping down a chalkboard to him.

"Maa, maa," Kakashi drawls, still slumped in his chair. "Let's not get too excited here."

"You're the one who actually moved first," Reborn says, an amused quirk to his lips as Leon retreats up his sleeve and he places the hat on his head.

Voldemort clicks his tongue but reins himself in and flicks his wand a few times, levitating the mess back into place and fixing any damage while ignoring Reborn and Kakashi staring with curiosity.

The Dark Lord then turns to the other two and holds out a hand. Reborn blinks innocently but hands over the notebook that he was hiding. Voldemort snatches it away from the infuriating Italian and turns to Kakashi, who produces a fountain pen. The wizard tags a portkey to them both before dropping the research notes and watching them vanish mid-air.

"What do you call the power you use?" Kakashi wonders.

"The broad term is magic," Voldemort admits, smoothing down his button-up shirt – not that it has wrinkles. "It tends to have a bad effect on technology so you might want to check your device," he adds on with a gesture to Reborn's laptop.

"Don't worry," Reborn says dismissively. "It's unbreakable."

Kakashi is rising out of his chair and wandering over in the next second because as a ninja he has never encountered something that can't be destroyed. In fact, he has the unfortunate tendency to break things he's not supposed to touch (Rin is a good example of this). "What is it made of?"

"That's a secret," Reborn hums teasingly and passes over the technology.

Kakashi takes it and scans the thing before opening it up. He presses down at a corner of the keyboard, where it could still be fixed if Kakashi accidentally goes too far with his strength, but it doesn't dent.

He blinks his one eye in curiosity and applies more force, still rather hesitant at damaging the thing since the black-haired man seems nice (In the loosest sense of the word. Kakashi remembers the sleek weapon and the smooth way the man reacted).

The technology doesn't so much as strain under his chakra reinforced strength and the ninja guesses at something like high-tier fuinjutsu. "Not bad," Kakashi admits and returns it.

"Fiendfyre."

Reborn and Kakashi jerk back while the laptop, right in the middle of exchanging hands, clatters to the ground as a roaring fire shaped like a snake engulfs it. The device disappears under red and orange and _heat_.

Voldemort smugly snuffs out the flames with a dramatic swish of his wand - and then blinks at the perfectly whole technology sitting innocently on the scorched black carpet of the library, a hole almost burnt straight through the floor under the laptop with dark smoke rising in wisps.

Reborn smirks and picks it up, bracing it on a hip with one arm, his other hand tucked into his pocket. "Neat trick," he says, humouring the man out of pity because Reborn's fire is much hotter than that tiny flicker.

Voldemort doesn't even care that the youngest is looking patronising because Horcruxes can only be destroyed by three things. Repentance, which is a joke in itself. Basilisk venom, which is rarer than a competent Minister of Magic.

And Fiendfyre, which any idiot can cast if they know the wand movement and the words. It's the greatest threat and nothing can survive it - except apparently this man's laptop.

"What material is that?" Voldemort murmurs, eyes alight with a dark shine.

Reborn doesn't answer and instead turns to Kakashi, calmly stating, "I want to see where you came from."

The ninja glances between the two men and his eye crinkles up in amusement as he catches on to the youngest one's mischief. "The portal of yours sounds rather interesting, doesn't it?" he asks Voldemort.

The Dark Lord calmly debates the pros and cons of just killing the silver haired one and ripping apart the black haired one's mind. He does a cursory glance with Legilimency and encounters absolutely nothing. Voldemort could have been trying to use Legilimency on a lamp for all that Reborn gave up.

That's not a good result at all. Imperio won't do anything on someone like that and a person with dealings in mind arts can shut themselves down when forced to drink truth serum. Voldemort could kidnap and torture the man? That's always an option.

Except no, it's really not, because torture is so crude for something this important and Voldemort can't break the Italian before he gets the name of the material.

So the question is; how much is the information needed?

Dumbledore, really the only threat, is slippery enough and has more than enough contacts all over the world to be able to piece together Voldemort's source of immortality. From there it's only a few short steps to find which objects Voldemort used (he wasn't exactly being subtle with his choices).

Perhaps the Dark Lord is paranoid or his view is biased since he already knows where the Horcruxes are, but he's not going to trust his immortality to 'hopefully Dumbledore is too stupid to piece things together'.

Then the next question; what is the price that will be paid?

Clearly Voldemort will get the material last which means showing the silver haired man the Veil. The hard part comes with the Italian's request, 'I want to _see_ ' being the words, which refers to actually visiting an entirely different dimension.

Theoretically it can be done since the silver one is here (and maybe isn't just insane) but theoretical doesn't count for anything if Voldemort can't put it into practice. Oh, he has no doubt in his mind that he will be able to if he puts effort into it, but he's kind of in the middle of a war so side projects should wait.

The last question seems to be; is the price worth the information?

"Yes," Voldemort says.

"Wonderful," Kakashi chirps. "So, we should all go see this interesting curtain." His mask moves like he's grinning and the ninja slings a long arm around Reborn's shoulders. "I feel like we'll be great friends - actually, what's that saying again? It means 'three'?"

Reborn raises an eyebrow, not sure what Kakashi is talking about but willing to guess anyway. "Do you mean a Triumvirate?"

"No, no, it's something like…" The ninja snaps his fingers in realisation. "I remember! It's a ménage à trois!"

"No," Voldemort deadpans instantly. "No, I assure you, that is not the phrase."

"I'm pretty sure it is," Kakashi argues, still with that irritating eye curved up in amusement.

" _I'm pretty sure you're a piece of-_ " Voldemort cuts himself off because he needs to learn to control this explosive anger. He takes a deep breath and lets it out but none of the sudden rage leaves him. "You die first," he snaps at Kakashi and then turns to Reborn. "You die second. Slowly."

"What did I do?" the hitman protests half-heartedly because he knows exactly what he did and he does not regret the chaos.

Voldemort hisses wordlessly.

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A/N: I'm not continuing since I have no idea where to go with this (sorry if I got your hopes up hahah) I just didn't want to post only a note.

Someone has actually **adopted Triumvirate** a while ago, but unfortunately it's low on their priority list and they haven't posted anything. Their name is **RyuuSiren7** , so if you want to see more just go and ask them when it'll come out. Don't worry, they're really nice, and I bet they just need a nudge to remember!

If anyone else wants a go at this plot then the offer of adoption is still open (I kind of want to see the different routes this will go under different authors).


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